I am Elias, a knight, I am unnaturally tall, standing at seven feet tall or a little over two meters, I have great strength despite little training, and I don’t remember anything before three years ago. I have been spending all the time I can remember, traveling, for some reason I cannot settle down.

I wear a heavy suit of armor, it’s completely white, like marble, the helmet comes to a point in the front and has a large horn on the top, like a beetle, and it has capes and banners flowing off of it. As far as I know I have never taken it off, and if I ever attempt to I feel an impending sense of dread, so I probably never will. I can still eat with it on, as well as anything else a human needs to do, it seemed to be designed to be lived in, I don’t know where I found it either.

I have no weapons, and I am poor at learning them, so I have been fighting with my bare hands. I experience plenty of difficulties but I always manage to come out on top, killing demons is hard, not many can do it, so I make a living off that. For three years I have been running around the world, killing demons and protecting villages, and I might have done that for the rest of my life, but it seems that fate had other plans with me…

“Jupiter, right?” I asked the knight who stood beside me, he was so imposing that I couldn’t help but be a little afraid, he stood well above me. If I was the exception, he was the exception among exceptions.

“Indeed, surely that’s not all you have to ask.” He pat my shoulder and sat down on the corpse of the demon I had slain, it was about the right size for him. He had a large burn mark in his helmet where I assumed his eye was, so I looked him in that.

Right he was, but how to open was the question, would he get mad if I pestered him with too many questions? ”For now… why did you look for me?” If I was being honest, a few more questions ached me more, but I would be happy if just this was answered. The person before me was a living legend, when the Gods declared war on man, Jupiter was said to protect entire cities from the storms and onslaughts, it was safe to say he was entirely separate from humanity in terms of power.

“Hah, that’s a hard question to answer…” He seemed to be deep in thought. Did he forget? no… then why the pause? He gestured to the girl that came along with him, apparently her name was Europa, a traveling companion. Though I found it strange she was never mentioned alongside Jupiter, she said she had been traveling with him for quite some time, she couldn’t just be a leach right?

"You’re strong aren't you? Do you think you could have saved them?" Instead Jupiter asked a question of me, I assumed it was a test of sorts. My worthiness of a traveling companion? or was I being sized up? While I pondered, Europa began to hack up the body of the demon, at the order of Jupiter. It seemed she was trying to dispose of the body, why else would they do with it?

I gathered my words before answering. “I was stuck defending one of them, no matter who I protected… someone would have died.” Jupiter surely knew this, after all he somehow protected everyone, including myself.

“Right you are… Elias, I arrived here in search of you, your talents are not ones to be wasted on the fringes of the world… unfortunately I must drag you into a larger fight.” He stood up from the demon, as Europa dealt with the torso. Once again he was at his full height, I had to crane my neck to look him in the face… plate.

“I’d be glad to fight alongside you, Jupiter.” It was the truth, never did I think I would fight for something bigger, I always felt weak, but just strong enough that not using that strength would be a waste. But what was greater? The Gods have been silent, demons are sparse, and most nations are at peace.

Jupiter spoke with a complicated tone.

“I was afraid you’d say that…”

2

At Jupiter’s request I repeated the words I have heard about man’s history.

“In this world, there are Gods, Demons, and man, and one cardinal sin between them, Gods are the masters of the world, governing all of existence, Demons are agents of chaos, and are creatures without souls, Mankind is the weakest and furthest from Gods, and it’s only Mankind that has souls, if any of the above were to ever return from death, the Gods would deliver punishment to them, more painful than that death several time over.” That was the idea I understood.

"That seems a bit oversimplified, doesn't it?" Jupiter asked, but I couldn’t quite understand what he was getting at. It may be legend, but demons were common enough, and magic was surely the gift of the Gods, so what did he mean?

"Well most of the knowledge about that time is lost, maybe things were different back then?" I responded, there was nothing to prove that story was wrong, then again, I have never seen a God, or witnessed a cardinal sin, I had only heard stories.

”That’s not a bad assumption, all things will be lost to time, even the truth is no exception.” Jupiter began to walk past me and in the direction of a nearby road, those people who got attacked by a demon were initially part of a caravan, and it seems they had begun to return to the transport.

Taking a moment to look at Jupiter himself, he had an easily recognizable appearance, that was because of the armor he wore, and like those heros of stories there were many people that had made depictions of him, most of these were those he had personally saved, from what I knew he had never requested them to do this, but I was thankful of them too, if not for them I might have not known it was him immediately, though that was mostly due to his power...

His armor was comprised of mainly simple shapes, the helmet and cauldrons only modified rectangles, the breastplate made of a few triangles, while simple, it was distinctive, it helped that the man himself stood around 300 cm, or ten feet, a phenomenon that I did not understand, perhaps he was similar to me in that way, after all I had never met someone, a human, that stood over me, it only made his presence more intimidating though...

A long sigh broke the tense air, for a moment I wondered how the air escaped his helmet but I pushed that thought aside "Elias tell me, what do you think about demons?"

"I'm sorry I don't understand what you mean, demons are..." I tried to think of what answer Jupiter was looking for, what I thought of demons… "... they are violent beings, that will continue to reproduce until the very last one is destroyed, pure evil" I listed off the basic facts I knew about them, so far I had not been proven wrong about them, so I figured that would be enough.

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"Well..." Jupiter seemed to be thinking of what to say for a few seconds, I let him continue “It’s remarkably simple, if we did not have to fight demons, how would our lives change? Think about it for a while don’t answer right now.” He continued off as I followed, what would change?, well I have only had a hot meal because I used my strength to kill demons, and save people, but there are plenty of things you can do with strength…

Jupiter's words held a certain weight to them, I thought it was strange to tell me this now, but perhaps it was that I just didn't know enough about the world, demons were a constant, life would surely be better without them, without so many lives lost in the fires…

Those in the caravan welcomed us to join them, so I, Jupiter and Europa were led to the largest cart, one that was supposed to be for storage, Jupiter was simply too large and heavy to sit as a regular passenger, if you were to put words to it, he left tracks in dry dirt, and it would not be a stretch to say he could drag the whole caravan on his strength alone. It was not just that he was large, but also trained and honed, I could only imagine the muscle of a wild animal underneath that armor, to carry slabs of stone on your back and still be in fighting condition.

Europa took the lead in trying to start a conversation now, as we sat down “Say Elias haven’t I seen you before?, no no.. nevermind, but that armor of yours is defiantly recognizable, not the exact model but that is unmistakably the work of Gavel the famous blacksmith nomad!, same one that made this hunk of junk.” she tapped the side of Jupiter’s armor, it sound like metal scrapping against stone, Europa also wore armor of which it had metal gauntlets, the fingers of which looked like they had claws that extended an inch past the tip.

“You can still see out of that faceplate right? It covers your entire face, that was one of his gifts, you know he only made one hundred sets of armor? count yourself lucky, my armor wasn’t made by him, still I want to know how you guys eat…” she talked a lot, but that wasn’t exactly bad, she was trying to make me more comfortable, I could feel that she was pushing herself like this, maybe it’s my fault of not relaxing. Otherwise, what she said about connection I have to Jupiter, however small, exited me, but not without confusion, why would someone like me have a set of armor from a famous blacksmith, they told tales of heroics about those people…

Her armor though, did not share any of the same marks that I or Jupiter had, it was made of a pastel steel with a certain sheen, it had a large gem in the center that seemed to serve no purpose, as well as sharp bits all over, it looked like something meant to cut rather than to protect, could she use her armor as a weapon?

Weapons… Jupiter was known for using a halberd and shield, though it looked like he was currently using a sword, it looked to be as tall as me and as thick as a tree, it was as heavy as it looked, it shook the cart we were in when he put it down, even though it had just been resting on his back a moment ago, the blade of it looked a little dull and there were cracks all along it’s surface with a dull golden shine coming from each one, even if it couldn’t cut it was no less a dangerous weapon.

Europa’s weapon was even stranger, it looked like two serrated sickles attached by a long chain at the pommel, it’s sharpness was no doubt, it looked properly maintained and looks like it would hurt to get hit by, but that wasn’t it, it had rather large spikes lining either side of the blades that looked like they would hook into armor or skin if they could catch, a brutal weapon.

“Say, Europa I don’t doubt that you have known Jupiter for a long time, but how come I have never heard of you?” I wanted to know, she seemed overly familiar with Jupiter, and he did not pay any mind to her comments, sure he seemed magnanimous but he made no corrections to her either.

“Have you seen him? he take all the attention, and he won’t tell me the secret to grow taller…” Indeed, even compared to an average person she was quite small, was she eating correctly?

All the while Jupiter, the person in question looked somewhat aloof, I wasn't sure if this was because he was used to praise or he just didn't care how people talked about him, and that featureless helmet made his emotions even harder to read, he only chuckled lightly to himself every now and then at her comments.

I eventually resigned to not waste too much time worrying about it.

3

A common form of transportation was a line of carts, called a caravan, each of them were connected with cable and steered by a special cart in the front, normally a few strong animals would be pulling that cart, but this one was different, it was pulled by magic.

The head of the caravan was the daughter of the previous head, he dedicated his life to this caravan trail, people didn’t go hungry because of him, he made transport a craft and even brought supplies to and from cities during the God’s war.

Every human was taught was magic was, and it’s dangers, that was because magic could only gather at corpses, that was because the soul turned into magic after death, because the only power could be found in tragedy.

No one had a clear explanation, but one thing was thing that was everyone knew, do not reform the cardinal sin, do not wish for eternal life, do not wish to bring back the dead, do not disrupt the natural and divine order.

A phenomenon as old as recorded human history, magic was boundless but temporary, no two were alike and only once a millennia where the world changing magic would rise to the top, founding a stronghold or kingdom.

The fate of this world, and everyone in it, is tied to magic Because the King declared it so.

4

I pushed my faceplate in a bit, it wasn't falling it was just a habit I had developed, wearing this armor felt natural, feeling the air on my bare skin, was a foreign sensation…

Though Europa seemed to take notice of this, "Er... not to be rude but are you going to show your face?"

She had a helmet as well, but it was currently in her hands at the moment, it's design was simple but it had much more detail than both mine and Jupiter's, it was only the bottom half of one though, seemingly as to not get in the way of her glasses, were they really more important than head protection?

"I can't do that, ....sorry" even I didn't know why I did not want to part with it, even for a moment, it just felt wrong, like something bad would happen or I would be punished… I had no past, what could be holding this over me?

"I see, well I can't say I'm that disappointed, after all I haven't even seen Jupiter's face though that armor is cute enough isn't it?"

The last thing I would describe it as is cute.

He gave a light pat on Europa's shoulder, at that moment he almost looked like a parent, but that probably wasn't the case, how would I even know what that looked like?, maybe that's just how they acted around one another…

“There is something important thing we have to discuss, Elias" Jupiter's tone was much the same, perhaps his voice didn't change much with his mood, nonetheless I listened.

"I saw you use magic during the fight back there, how long have you had magic?"

There was no good answer other than the truth

"I don’t have any magic that I know of, I can’t remember anything from before three years ago, apparently around the same time The Wrath had ended."

I was conflicted on giving such a vague answer, but the only alternative would be to lie, but I had no reason, or want, to do that, especially to him

"I see, but you seem to have some sort of experience fighting, that's a start..."

"Starting from today I'll have to expand your knowledge on a number of things, but it's best if you get the personal experience, to that end we will be setting off soon after we enter a particular stronghold, there’s someone we should meet there.” I seemed to have been dropped in the middle of their plans, but nothing changed about them, how long have they known about me? and why?

"I will not waste this chance, Jupiter, I will become as strong as I need to be." At that he nodded, seeming pleased with my answer.

”If only it were so easy… hold out you hand…” Jupiter extended one fist to me, and I returned the gesture.

“Remember this feeling.” He bumped his fist against mine, it hurt, nothing compared to a demon, nor his true strength, but it was a solid hit.

”When you no longer feel pain from this, you will be ready, it’s not something you need training for…”